Which would still be infinitely better than any **** the booj craps out. Modern ninjas make good fiction however.:ninja7:

@Plasma: Thanks for the book suggestion man, Hopefully i can find a copy of that book.

Edit: Just want to make a small note for all the booj mobs out there, I'm not attacking the quality of Hatsumi's techniques, but the validity of them as actual legitimate ninjutsu ryuha. (Which as Virus proved in no small fashion, the legitimacy of the booj's claimed lineages is in serious question.)

Further Edit: Found the book, I can order it to be sent to my local borders, but holy cow and shurikens I didn't expect it to be 50 bucks though.

Jeez, still didn't expect the price, but I'll take you and plasma's word on it and go ahead and have borders order it.

Is the second book by Tanemura any good? It's called Ninpo Bugei, seems like it was intended to be a series, but only had vol. 1 which came out in 2002.

Tanemura was Hatsumi's student until he broke from him. All these guys (and I can say this because I'm anonymous) have written most of their Ninpo history from the history that was already written in previous Japanese historian's books.

Takamatsu passed on alot of history, but sadly much of it can't be absolutely verified. Tanemura will satisfy your "ninja hunger" more than Hatsumi sensei, but in my opinion - if you're concerned about historical accuracy - it's no more real than Hatsumi. Tanemura, in my opinion, just knows his market demographic and understands that many leave the Bujinkan because they don't get their "ninja fix".

Understand that there's a guy now, Kawakami, claiming to be a real Koga Ninja grandmaster, though the myth of existing Koga ninjutsu was put to rest long ago - here this guy appears. His appeal though is that he's teaching all the cool stuf you see in the "Shinobi no Mono" movies. So now all those guyz who have long been angry that Hatsumi didn't give them more "real Ninjutsu" are going apeshit with this guy screaming "at last! real Ninjutsu!" and in fact he's giving them what they always hoped was real Ninjutsu, but of course it's the same stuff in the books.

Ask yourself - what does an Army special forces guy learn? Green Berets learn alot of stuff, very little of which is hand-to-hand. Self defense skills are the least used and they get like a week of it. Many go out and get more. The Bujinkan has a disproportionate amount of spec ops guys as well as federal officers, but - the point is that those who functioned in history in the roles of what we would consider Ninja just trained in whatever bugei was available to their clan or family. Their main job as Ninjas had little to do with overt fighting.

That being said, in TODAY'S world, what WE want is fighting Ninjutsu and so teachers like Takamatsu developed those arts based on the model of Ninjutsu. Is it Ninjutsu? Hell yes, but not in the historical sense. Hand-to-hand combat was a "oops, I fucked up" survival skill, not a primary job skill.

Understand that "those who were Ninja" changed dramatically from period to period, they weren't all the same guys. For comparison take a look at the Green Berets or Navy SEALS from the Viet Nam war to the present. TOTAL evolution.

Anyway, you will be disappointed initially by the book you've bought. Buck up and read it through. When you're finished you may have a different, and more accurate idea of what Ninjutsu, Ninpo and the Ninja were.

While you're waiting for it to come, go to Roy Ron's site www.ninpo.org. Look at his "historical records". Read his translations of the Shoninki, Bansenshukai and Ninpiden. Roy Ron is Genbukan, but has a Phd in Japanese history - or some such.

Once you begin to understand the real thing, you may feel freer to go ahead and train in a Bujinkan, Genbukan or Jinenkan school, or just go do some MMA. It's all good.

Koryu.com reccomend Ninjutsu: The Art of Invisibility by Donn Draeger and Ninja: The True Story of Japan's Secret Warrior Cult by Stephen Turnbull.

Originally Posted by koryu.com

Ninjutsu? Maybe it's time for a reality check. Otherwise, you might check out Ninja: The True Story of Japan's Secret Warrior Cult, by Stephen Turnbull, published by Firebird Books. Well, the title alone has a few problems. True story? Secret Warrior Cult? No, I don't think so. But this is about the best I've seen other than Draeger's little book, Ninjutsu: The Art of Invisibility. I know this work has been published by several companies, most recently by Yen Books, a division of Tuttle.

[An aside is in order: recently, I've taken a considerable amount of heat for my rather dismissive attitude toward ninpo, or ninjutsu, ever since this article was first published. Well enough, but I want to make this clear: I don't think ninjutsu is a "bad" art, nor do I think people who study it are "bad" people. I am less than fully impressed with the ninjacompoops, as I call them, for a number of reasons. First of all, as one aspect of the martial arts, the equivalent, more or less, of military intelligence, it is certainly a legitimate area of study. The problem is, except for a handful of koryu, where it's a part of a larger comprehensive curriculum, ninjutsu just doesn't exist anymore. Certainly not as an independent ryu-ha. What is commonly taught as ninjutsu, in Japan and elsewhere, is nothing more than a rather disparate collection of unarmed and weapons arts. This, according to the people with whom I've spoken (people who are either professors of martial studies at Tsukuba University, the International Budo University, and Chukyo University, or headmasters and senior exponents in the classical martial arts), is something that's not very clearly understood by the general public. That's not to say these arts are not technically valid or that they don't have historical provenance. What they aren't, however, is the art of ninjutsu per se. One could saddle a cow, but I doubt it would serve you well if you rode it in a steeplechase. Same thing here.

Secondly, when I used the term "sub-human" in a previous version of this article in referring to people doing ninjutsu, I did so in light of the historical Japanese attitude toward the group of people who comprised the "ninja." The word used to refer them was hinin (outcast or criminal, with a strong implication of "sub-human"). The ninja were not viewed as esoteric Robin Hoods who righted the wrongs of the rich and protected the poor. They were viewed as little more than opportunistic scum who couldn't be trusted as far as you could throw them. The common opinion ("the only good ninja is a dead ninja") was a bit strong for our modern sensibilities, maybe, but that was the way bushi felt about it. I don't think modern exponents are sub-human. Silly, perhaps. Sub-human, no.

What I object to is the huge amount of misinformation and the misconceptions pushed by people in the popular media. Some of this is merely over-romanticism, but some of it is pure and simple hucksterism, intended to increase sales. Maybe it can't be helped. But all of the outright distortion that I have seen and heard is bothersome.]

Jeez, still didn't expect the price, but I'll take you and plasma's word on it and go ahead and have borders order it.

Is the second book by Tanemura any good? It's called Ninpo Bugei, seems like it was intended to be a series, but only had vol. 1 which came out in 2002.

Ninpo Bugei is just his Genbukan Kihon book. Unless you are a Genbukan student its not very useful. However, Ninpo Secrets is VERY hard to get a hold of, their hasn't been a printing in years. I am skeptical if borders can REALLY get it. However, it is very worth $50.

Ninpo Bugei is just his Genbukan Kihon book. Unless you are a Genbukan student its not very useful. However, Ninpo Secrets is VERY hard to get a hold of, their hasn't been a printing in years. I am skeptical if borders can REALLY get it. However, it is very worth $50.

Ninpo Secrets was reprinted in the last year or so. You can order it directly from the Genbukan at http://www.genbukan.org if you don't want to go through "special order" at a book store.

Look, if you have unending funds, go buy every damn book. Fact is Tanemura's book is no more accurate than anything Hatsumi Soke has ever written, it's just more "mysterious" ooooooo

As I said before, Tanemura was clever enough to market towards that part of the wanne-be Ninja community that was dissatisfied with Hatsumi Soke.

Donn Draeger's book is a repeat of what was being published already in Japan by Japanese "historians" (in quotes because these guys really were just repeating popular culture during their own Ninja boom). Same with Andrew Adams. Those guys got all their information from previously published Japanese Ninja books, which is where the Japanese teachers got their history (with the exception of Hatsumi Soke since he had a direct connection with Takamatsu and Tanemura never did) . If you're already dissatisfied with Hatsumi Soke then you'll be wasting your money jumping on the Tanemura bandwagon.

And while we're on the subject, Skoss is a Koryu snob, in my opinion and his opinions are extremely biased towards his own "genre".

Turbull is a historian, and researched Shinobi history from the perspective of a historian.

I understand that everyone wants to have their opinion voiced in this subject, but if you are really interested in what little actual history there is regarding the Shinobi of ancient Japan, buy Turnbull's book (he has an update to go with that book by the way), then study the three existing Ninja scrolls on ninpo.org, THEN step back and decide where to go from there.

Follow my advise exactly and you will save yourself further financial harm.